David Smith is the founder of Silicon Valley Business School and has been instrumental in the development of all the courses and programs. He holds a BSc.(Hons.) Computer Science & Economics from the University of Leeds (U.K.), a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the University of Westminster (U.K.) and a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law.

EntrepreneurshipDavid has founded more than ten startup ventures, in Silicon Valley, Europe and Japan. Tynax has grown into a leading patent broker operating a technology exchange. SurfMonkey (see video on the right) was acquired by Yahoo. Silicon Valley High School is profitable and establishing a strong foothold in the education sector.

David's startups have been financed by leading angel investors, including Bill Gates, venture capital funds and corporate investors based in the US, China and Japan.

David authored the book Zero-to-IPO. A roadmap and travel guide for high-tech startup entrepreneurs which is now published in Japanese as well as English language.

At Santa Clara Law school, David was attracted to all the classes dealing with business law and was awarded the CALI Excellence for the Future Award for the Advanced Corporations course.

Marketing
As 3rd Party Channel Manager for Apple, David won the Golden Apple award for outstanding achievement after creating the Apple Accredited Distributor Program and helped US vendors of Apple-related products engage with distributors in the UK and Europe. David was promoted to Apple World Marketing Manager and led an effort to synchronize Apple's marketing and branding efforts across the various geographies, including Europe, Africa, Middle East as well as the United States.

David founded Xpand and acted as an international marketing agency helping US vendors reach international markets including UK, France, Germany and Australia. He created the Xpand Xpo, the first virtual reality tradeshow which became the first CD-ROM filled with paid advertising, and one of the first CD-ROM filled with digital video advertisements. David was one of the early pioneers of Internet marketing in the early 1990's with Xpand, creating virtual tradeshows on CD-ROM for Apple, the National Association of Broadcasters and other clients. He built one of the first web browsers into the Xpand Xpo so the CD-ROM integrated online web pages with rich media videos and virtual reality content from CD-ROM.

Intellectual PropertyDavid studied patent law at Santa Clara Law school, which was ranked 2nd in the U.S. for intellectual property.
He is the inventor of patent US7222309.

With Tynax, David represents large corporate clients in the US, China, S. Korea and Europe brokering patent sale and technology transfer transactions. He is recognized as one of the "World's Leading IP Strategists" in the IAM Strategy 300, published by International Asset Magazine.

One of David's early startups developed and sold accounting systems, specializing in software for advertising agencies and David spent several years specializing in automating accounting, bookkeeping and job-costing systems.